or Arabs, who have left an Oriental impress on nearly the whole of Spain, with the exception of the Biscayan provinces. The great repertory of Spanish proverb is that immortal work Don Quixote, and the Coryphæus of all adage-mongers is without doubt Sancho Panza, who has a proverb for almost every possible circumstance or occurrence of life, and "wise saws perpetually on the tip of his tongue. But these proverbs, to be properly enjoyed, ought to be read in the original, many of them being wholly untranslatable.

As far as this constant use of proverbs is concerned, many a Sancho Panza is to be found in every Arab tribe and in every Turkish town; and the generality of Turks really seem to make moral wisdom consist in the extent of a man's collection of this kind of things, the strength of his memory, and his readiness in applying proverbs.

Many of these proverbs, which the Turks in all probability borrowed from their ancestors, or congeners in the remote regions of the East, are exactly like or closely resemble old proverbs of our own. The following are a

few examples:

:

Turkish.-1. When the cat is absent, the mice lift up their heads.

us.

English.-1. When the cat' s away the mice will play. 2. We never look at the teeth of a horse that is given

2. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

3. Far from the eyes farther from the heart.

3 Out of sight out of mind.

4. He who gives to the poor gives to God,

4. He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord.

5. The tongue kills more people than the sword. 5. The tongue is sharper than the sword.

6. The egg to-day is worth more than the hen to

morrow.

6. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

7. Is it when the horse is stolen that you shut the stable-door?

7. Idem.

8. Strike the iron while it is hot.

8. Idem.

9. It is a fast-day to-day, and I must not eat," says the cat, on seeing a piece of liver she cannot reach.

9. "Sour grapes," says the fox, &c.

10. Honey is a good thing, but the price of honey is another thing!

10. What a pity 'tis that honey

Can't be got without hard money.

In a short collection of Turkish proverbs now before us, we see several which are precisely the same as some in use in Italy, and a few that closely resemble common French proverbs. The Italians in the middle ages, and particularly the Venetians, the Genoese, the Pisans, and the Amalfitans, kept up a constant intercourse with the people of the East, from whom they introduced not only proverbs, but many fables, apologues, anecdotes, stories, and short romances. It is evident, however, that some of these things did not depend on a transmission from one people to another; but that they sprang up spontaneously (or from the existence of material objects common to nearly all countries) in different countries and at different times, being, thus far, original in several countries or among several people. Wherever, for example, there grew a rose-bush, men were just as likely as the Turks or Persians to see "that there is no rose without a thorn ;" and the moral application, the forcible illustration to be derived from such things, would become evident at the first dawn of civilization. It is during this dawn and twilight that proverbs best flourish; the full meridian light, and a high civilization, are fatal to them. In Europe, the Turks of Roumelia, the Greeks, the scarcely more civilized Spaniards, and Portuguese, and the Neapolitans, seem to be the people who have most proverbs, and make the greatest use of them.

The Turks say,

"The eye of the master in the stable is as good for the horse as a rubbing down."

The Italians,

"L'occhio del padrone ingrassa il cavallo."

(The eye of the master fattens the horse.)

Some of the Turkish proverbs are highly poetical. We think the fastidious Chesterfield could scarcely, have objected to the following:

"Where the horse of a Kurd has struck the soil, the grass ceases to grow."

"Death is a black camel that kneels before every door."

"Here great ships have foundered: what comest thou to do in such a sea with thy weak skiff?”

"The night is pregnant with the morrow; God knows what the dawn will shine upon.”

Others of these proverbs again have considerable point and finesse. The Turks say,

"If you present yourself at a great man's house with empty hands, they will tell you his lordship is asleep ;' but if you go with a present, they will say, 'My lord, condescend to enter.'

"Every thing finishes here below except enmity." "He who seeks a friend exempt from all faults remains without friends."

"The lazy man says, I have no strength."

"The wounds of a knife are cured, but those inflicted by the tongue are often incurable.”

"Patience is the key to joy."

"Fame is not acquired on a feather-bed."

"The crow was asked, which were the most beautiful of birds? My little ones,' replied she.'

"Every occurrence that makes us weep, is accompanied by something to make us laugh."

"If it were possible for us to do all that we desire should be done, every poor faquir would be a great pasha."

The two last are counterparts to Shakspere's. "The thread of life is of a mingled yarn,” &c.; and,—

"If to do were as easy as to know what ought to be done, poor men's cottages would be princes' palaces," &c. That excellent traveller, the late J. L. Burckhardt, during his residences at Cairo, collected a great many Arabic proverbs, concluding very justly that the manners

and customs of the modern Egyptians might be illustrated to a considerable extent by the proverbial sayings current among them. In putting them together on paper, he stopped short at the number nine hundred and ninetynine; "adopting herein," he says, a notion prevalent among Arabs, that even numbers are unlucky, and that anything perfect in its quantity is particularly affected by the evil eye."

66

It is curious to recognise the existence of this superstition of the deserts in the neighbourhood of London. We remember that, when we were children, there was a great cow-keeper at Islington of the name of Rhodes, who had no difficulty in keeping nine hundred and ninetynine cows all safe and sound; but, do what he would, he could never keep a thousand. If he bought one to make up the number, two or three others were sure to die; nay, if he purchased ten or twenty at a time, before he could get them home, a sudden mortality would dispose of other ten or twenty; thus always keeping the number down to the charmed nine hundred and ninety-nine. At least so went the story; the truth of which no cook-maid, housemaid, or old maid in the neighbourhood seemed to doubt. In latter years, we detected the same superstitious notion in France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy.

Some years after Mr. Burckhardt's death, his collection of Arab proverbs, edited by Sir William Ouseley, was published in a quarto volume by authority of the Association for promoting the discovery of the interior of Africa. Though it has been neglected by the generality of readers, it is a curious, and in some instances, a highly useful volume.

A very large portion of these proverbs in their form of a verbal translation would be altogether unintelligible without the traveller's explanation and running commentary. A few are intelligible enough, and almost counterparts of European sayings.

The Arabs have,

"The one-eyed person is a beauty in the country of the blind."

The French,

XLVII. A DEVIL AT THE TOP OF ST. PAUL'S.

A SINGULAR HALLUCINATION.

DR. PRITCHARD, in an essay on somnambulism and animal magnetism, with which he has enriched the Cyclopædia of Medicine, has given so remarkable a case of ecstasis, as he calls it, that it deserves to be presented entire to our readers; it would be unjustifiable to clip it of a single line.

A gentleman, about thirty-five years of age, of active habits and good constitution, living in the neighbourhood of London, had complained for about five weeks of slight headache. He was feverish, inattentive to his occupations, and negligent of his family. He had been cupped, and taken some purgative medicine, when he was visited by Dr. Arnould of Camberwell, who has favoured us with the following history. By that gentleman's advice he was sent to a private asylum, where he remained about two years; his delusions very gradually subsided, and he was afterwards restored to his family. The account which he gave of himself was, almost verbatim, as follows. We insert the statement as we received it from his physician. One afternoon in the month of May, feeling himself a little unsettled, and not inclined to business, he thought he would take a walk into the city to amuse his mind; and having strolled into St. Paul's Churchyard, he stopped at the shop-window of Carrington and Bowles, and looked at the pictures, among which was one of the cathedral. He had not been long there, before a short, grave-looking, elderly gentleman, dressed in dark-brown clothes, came up, and began to examine the prints, and occasionally casting a glance at him, very soon entered into conversation with him; and, praising the view of St. Paul's which was exhibited at the window, told him many anecdotes of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, and asked him at the same time if he had ever ascended to the top of the dome. He replied in the negative. The stranger then inquired if he had